A short story about how Nirit have saved the day, and one wet chinese raft-driver

This the 3rd day of our stay at the southern and very much touristic town of YangShuo. It's located just outside famous GuiLin, and too has an amazing scenery of Karst peaks. It's a bit hard to explain, this is why we'll let the pictures speak for themselves...



Yesterday we rented a copule of bikes and rode in the countryside. We climbed to the top of the Moon Hill, from which we could have seen the wonderfull view only if there weren't so many clouds. From there we rode on for another 7 hours or so along the river and the villages aside it. After a day ride we could hardly seat down without problems...



Today we went to yet some more villages, along the Li river (Li Jiang). We saw the local market in Xingping, where they sold a surprisingly big amount of tobacco leaves ready to smoke. We even saw a dog on the market, but it didn't see us...



From the village's dock we took a boat for 2 hours. Well, it wasn't quite a boat, but a tiny bamboo-raft, with a very very MASTUL driver. Our driver knew only one word in English - Hello! With this broad vocabulary he managed to explain us the hisrtory of the river and the karst peaks, and to explain us just why he loves his country so much.



After a short, very peaceful and calm sail, a big Tour-Ship passed us by. In a few moments big waves appeared and our little bamboo started to go up and down. Suddently it began to turn, and as it did we were really surprised to find out our MASTUL driver in the water, waving and screaming funny "Hello!"s at us. The silly guy just flipped over into the water, and now we both were strangeled on a bamboo-thingie, which was spinning over and over, because nobody was holding it's motor and stearing it. While our driver was checking to see if his cell-phone still works, in the water, Nirit leaped to the back of the bamboo-raft and grabbed the motor's stick.



The raft began to go right and left, as fearless Nirit tried to figure it out. Just before another big tour-ship smashes us, and a moment before we crashed on the rocks, she got it together, turned the boat around and even picked up the amused driver on the way. The other passing-by bamboo drivers cheered. Actually we were so busy trying to figure out what to do that we didn't think of taking pics of the entire thing. For the rest of the day our silly driver was amused as hell, telling the story to every collegue he spotted on the way. His cell-phone, by the way still works, even though it was totaly soaked in river water. And to think it was a chinese motorola fake...




These were our little local advantures in YangShuo. Tomorrow we're not doing anything, and that's the way we like it. In a few days we'll leave the south and start heading toward the north-east, going through Huang shan (the yellow mountain) and some cities, on our way to ShangHai. Those of you who actually looked at our interactive map (Michal, we know you did) will ask themselves why aren't we heading toward Hong Kong? Well, let's just say that Issta caused us some visa difficulties which made us give it up and head straight to ShangHai, but it's not a big deal.

Post to you soon.